


Winter's Bite

by Harmonious_wordsmith



Category: Captain America, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Sebastian Stan - Fandom, Winter Soldier - Fandom
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-30
Updated: 2017-06-05
Packaged: 2018-07-27 14:59:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7623190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harmonious_wordsmith/pseuds/Harmonious_wordsmith





	1. Chapter 1

I don't remember much, it all kinda flashes by, splintered, crumbling when I try to grab a hold of it. I remember pain. A voice yelling at me. Screaming. Glass breaking and the scraping screech of metal crunching.  
Have you ever heard that? Now that I have, I've decided it's one of the most terrifying sounds I've ever heard.  
But why did I hear it? What was I hearing?  
My head is pounding.  
There's something I need to remember, but what is it?   
"Hannah? I think she's coming around. Hannah, can you hear me?"  
There's a surprised voice next to me that gets my attention.  
The fog parts and the vision in my left eye clears somewhat, showing me a stark hospital room. White walls, drab grey accents to match the too-warm blanket tucked around me; plain steel furniture, with stiff-looking grey cushions. No windows. various monitors beside me beep in time with the throbbing in my head.  
My right eye feels pinched shut.  
"You may find you're a bit sore, and your eye is still pretty well swollen, but don't worry. You're healing up perfectly well after an accident like that." The man speaking is chipper. Far too chipper.   
I'm annoyed.   
But he looks to be my doctor, so I humor him,  
"Accident?" I croak, my voice so rough with sleep or disuse I barely recognize it,  
"Car accident." The voice beside me says again. With my eye swollen shut and the nagging knot in my neck, I nearly have to turn on my side to get a good look at him.   
"That was three days ago. I was starting to wonder when I'd get you back."  
Why do I know him?  
He lifts my hand, our fingers laced, and quickly kisses my knuckles when his wedding band catches the light. I surreptitiously feel my left ring finger and find my own band. He must be my husband.  
"Andrew." I whisper. Because he has to be Andrew.   
He smiles a crooked smirk at his name, a smirk I almost remember,  
"That's a good sign, right?" He asks the doctor who nods in response. Both seem amused if not proud of something, but my head hurts too much to figure out what.  
"She should be fit for discharge in the next day or so." The doctor says, "We need to make sure that eye is healing and there are no surprises. You'll be home in no time."   
The doc finally leaves us and Andrew scoots his chair closer,   
"So you remember me."  
I nod,   
"Do you remember the accident?"  
I shake my head. I can't tell if he looks relieved or disappointed.  
"What do you remember about our work?"  
We work together?   
"We've been continuing Dr Zola's research..." He prompts after a moment.  
I dig into the back of my mind, trying so hard to press through the haze until finally, I grasp something. A few fuzzy images, dim, like from a dream. A lab overflowing with books, stacks of files holding seemingly endless amounts of data; white boards covered in blurry scribbles, calculations and formulas, some smudged away, some partially crossed out; the two of us celebrating a breakthrough of some sort. Always beside Andrew. Proofreading presentations, critiquing theories, even arguing over anything from work to what to eat for dinner.  
"You hate sushi..." I say, making him blink as I veer off subject, "you hate reading my engineering papers... And our project... We were nearly finished." His smile is contagious as my memories slide back into place as effortlessly as waking up.  
"We were just missing one thing before we could move on to the final phase..."  
"The subjects."  
He nods again, looking satisfied with my memory.  
"How are you really feeling?" He asks quietly after a moment of running his fingers through my hair in silence,  
I can only groan.   
He seems to think it's funny, but helps me bump up my painkiller dosage so I let it slide.  
"I have news." He says, leaning even closer,   
"Oh?"   
He nods, obviously excited about something.  
"We found them."  
It takes me a moment to understand,  
"No... How many?"  
"All three. Alive."  
I gasp and the beeping beside my speeds up up.   
The Zephyrs. We have them.  
After so long trying to find them, we had decided to try recreating the serum, always being met with failure and dead ends before we finally realized we needed the original subjects for our work to mean anything. Our work of reviving Dr Zola's three Zephyr sleepers, ultimately preparing to bring HYDRA's most prized weapons back into play.   
Finding them was the trick, but now...  
Now they're ours.


	2. Chapter 2

"Hannah wake up." Andrew says softly, shaking my shoulder.  
"What's wrong?" I groan,  
"You were calling out in your sleep. Bad dream?"  
I don't even remember dreaming, though I can't shake the sinking feeling in my stomach,  
"What was I saying?"  
"I couldn't understand you, you just sounded like you were in trouble. What happened?"  
I rack my brain, finding only scattered feelings: terror, pain, anxiety... But no details.   
Why can't I remember?  
I just shake my head and turn to snuggle into Andrew's side. His arms close around me, hugging me tight as he runs his fingers through my hair.   
"Maybe..." He begins quietly, "Maybe it's too soon to have you come back to work--"  
"Andrew, it was just a bad dream. I'm fine. And getting stir crazy. I'm coming to work with you tomorrow."  
He sighs and I can almost feel him rolling his eyes at me.   
"You have to do something for me then."  
I lean back to look at him warily.  
"What's that?"  
"Go talk to the Professor."  
"It was just a car accident, Andrew."  
"It was a head injury. A fairly serious one. I want to make sure that you're fully okay before we jump back into this project."  
I roll away from him, preparing to sulk, but he pulls me back against his chest.  
"I'm not letting you hurt yourself over this, Hannah." He kisses my shoulder, "Have the professor do an evaluation. Once he clears you, you can come see how the work is going. But don't push yourself."  
"We don't exactly have a lot of time here."  
"We have enough."  
But do we?  
.  
.  
.  
Andrew wouldn't leave me alone until I agreed to see our Professor. He's our on site psychiatrist and physician, reserved specifically for making sure our assets are not pushed beyond their limits. On occasion, our superiors have utilized him for a few of us that have been deemed important enough to keep around after traumatic experiences or disastrous missions.  
I should probably be flattered.  
After a thorough physical exam in our hospital wing, ensuring my head injury is not only healing properly but that there are also no unexpected side effects, the Professor sits me down in what I assume is his office, though there are no personal touches that differentiate it from any other office on this floor.   
"Doctor Blake," he begins, "your husband tells me you've been having trouble sleeping."  
"Nightmares on occasion, but isn't that normal after trauma?"  
"Perhaps. What happens in your nightmares?"  
"I'm not sure what you mean... Scary things I suppose."  
"What sorts of 'scary things'? Are they memories of childhood? Of the accident? Are they fictions produced by your subconscious that unsettle you?"  
"I'm not sure."  
"Do tell."  
"I still have no memory of the accident itself. And the nightmares are only ever... Feelings. I don't see anything or anyone, but I know something is wrong. Everything hurts and everything is cold and everything feels wrong. It's like I need to fight back but I won't... Or can't."  
"Fight what?"  
"...I don't know."  
He's infuriatingly calm and clinical, but doesn't look at me judgmentally, so I take that as a win.   
"How often do these dreams occur?"  
I shrug noncommittally,  
"Your husband was vague about the frequency, but made it seem like they are rather regular. Would you like something to help you sleep more soundly?"  
"I don't need meds for a few bad dreams."  
"There are other methods as well if you would like to get to the bottom of this. Hypnosis, for example: I could take you back to the time of the accident if you felt it would help you move past the trauma."  
"No need. I'm sure it will sort itself out. Between you and me, my husband worries too much."  
He regards me for a few more moments.  
"As you wish. If your dreams get more intense or you uncover new details, please come see me again. I can help you to sift through whatever may be bothering you. Other than that, physically I see no reason for you to return to duty." I breathe a sigh of relief and begin gathering my things, ready to practically sprint to the lab, but he stops me one last time. "Should you start to feel faint or find yourself getting migraines or even persistent headaches, come see me immediately. You seem perfectly healthy now, but you would be surprised what can hide in the shadows during these exams."  
I nod my agreement, but mentally I'm already down the hall. Down two flights of stairs. Navigating my familiar maze of passages hiding Andrew's and my lab in the depths of the compound.   
I'm almost surprised to find myself standing in front of the reinforced steel doors. So excited about my prize on the other side that I fumble with my keycard a few times before finally unlocking the door.  
I bounce on my toes as I wait for the gears to shift and settle. The door slides open and I step into the dimly lit control room. A handful of people are present, a consultant, two handlers, and two technicians, including Andrew who turns to me with bright eyes.  
"Perfect timing." He reaches for my hand, I don't miss the cursory once-over he gives me before he pulls me toward the window that looks into a fairly small chamber, that holds the three cryotubes.   
He always worries too much.  
"We're just waking them up."  
His hands fly over the slides and dials, prompting hissing and groaning from the various mechanical systems as temperature and oxygen is slowly regulated.  
"One at a time." He says almost to himself.  
The figure in the tube to the far right begins to stir. It's just like watching someone wake after an unexpected nap, then not so much. First sluggishness, then a flash of confusion. Then fear. He thrashes against his cell, screaming, looking every bit the feral dog, though nothing can be heard through the thick glass separating him from the chamber, much less the bullet-proof, shatter-proof, triple-reinforced window that separates the chamber from us.  
The figure pauses for a moment when he sees me, his eyes widening in what looks like recognition, then his snarling and thrashing renews, his fury apparently now directed at me.   
"Gentlemen," Andrew speaks with pride, "I give you subject number 1. Code name: Arkhady."  
I smile in spite of myself.   
Let the fun begin.


	3. Chapter 3

*Arkhady*

I knew I recognized her. It took me a while to really clear the cobwebs. I think it usually does, though what do I know? According to these goons, I've been under for the past twenty years. It could all be a dream.   
Right.  
I can almost believe that.   
But this pain is all too familiar. I cough up so much water I'm surprised they didn't actually drown me that time. Every time I think I should just stop fighting and let them 'accidentally' hold me under or shock me too long, I remember that they would just bring me back. That's what they do after all. That's what they did every other time I tried to get clever.   
The punches are hard enough to make me see stars, in sure a few things have cracked, but no breaks. Nothing that could puncture a lung or other organ and get me out of here. Nothing that would keep me in the infirmary too long.   
Just keep remembering her. 'Stay with me, soldier.' She'd said to me, 'We're gonna take care of you.' So where is she now? Hiding behind that two way mirror that isn't fooling anyone.   
Why aren't you helping now, doc?

"Why are you harping on this?" Andrew huffs in exasperation.  
"I'm not harping."  
"You are."  
"I'm just trying make us more efficient."  
"So are we."  
"No. if that were true you'd let me try the--."  
"--don't say it."  
"We can all see how 'efficiently' these methods have deteriorated Arkhady's mind. How long until he's completely useless to us? Or until Leo or the Soldier follow suit? This is messy, time consuming, semi-permanent at best, and torturous."  
"Hannah, since when does that matter? This is all meant for conditioning, and I have to say, you're worrying me with all of this concern over an experiment. In the first place."  
"That's not fair." I can't take this argument anymore, so I finally grab my tablet and cables and head for the door. "For one, these aren't experiments anymore. They're the real deal. They're assets. We need their mental faculties intact for the work we're sending them out to do. And two, since when is torture a conditioning technique? I'll concede to the sensory deprivation, and I'm on the fence with the electro shock, though I can see its merit. Beating, waterboarding, how do you consider those conditioning requirements?"  
"Call it character development."  
"Andrew!"   
"What? You do know what these assets have done, right? You know who they were before?"  
"Do you? I mean come on, they were all veterans."  
"But for which side?"  
"What does that matter anymore?" I mutter, shoving the door open.

*Arkhady*

Hold on to it while it's there: my name is Karpov. I'm a soldier. Aren't I? Of course. A soldier. My name is Wieck. It has to be. It's the only thing I know for sure. My name.   
Anything I can hold onto will help with what's coming.   
It took me long enough to recognize her, but there's no mistaking that voice now, with or without that accent she used to have. She probably thinks I can't hear her and her boyfriend arguing in that little room.   
Would she even realize how insulting that is? Talking about me like I'm not strapped to an 'exam table' in the next room. She probably wouldn't care. Regardless of the fact that I'm only this way because of her. I can hear every word thrown between them, just like I can hear every shift of the wires in my arm, I can hear the termites munching away at the chair in the corner of the room next door. Maybe it's two doors down. I've been asleep a while, I think I might be a bit rusty.   
Wait...  
I almost had it. My name... Bruch, no wait. Stanovich. Hold on to it.   
My name...   
No... I know it's coming. The pain.   
Here we go again.   
Oh please, not again...

'Which side are any of us on nowadays?' I think to myself as I leave the room in a huff.   
We've been slowly infiltrating the SHIELD facilities, successfully planting sleepers and bringing down certain operations. Though in the midst of attempting to tear them apart from the inside, we've managed to lose some of our own either through discovery or conversion.   
Even among us HYDRA loyalists, there are too many blurred lines between what we are and what we were meant to be.   
My thoughts are interrupted when I make it to the operating theater. While we don't technically do much operating, the room has seen plenty of blood and gore.   
Arkhady's been awake for two weeks now, and from day one he has screamed the same thing every time we bring him into the clinic: we can't do this again.   
'Again.'  
And he's not talking about today compared to yesterday. He knows us. More importantly: he knows what we've done to him. It makes me wonder how much of this ordeal is even worth our time.  
He should be a blank slate.   
He shouldn't be fighting us.   
I take a breath before entering. Steeling myself against the screams.   
"Don't do this! Not again! Нет! Нет! Вы не можете! Вы не можете иметь меня!"  
"Would you hold him down already?" I bark at the security detail in the room, "I won't be able to work on him when he's thrashing!"   
They finally subdue Arkhady enough that I'm able to inject him. The sedative takes longer than I'd like to cause any sort of reaction, and even then what should have knocked him out cold merely calmed him to a fairly manageable level.   
I try to finish diagnostics on his artificial arm before the drug wears off, which I assume will be a fraction of the time I need. Removing the plates that cover the main motherboard is eating up valuable time.  
Maybe I can manage to render the arm inert as I work, though finding the key circuitry for this would take even more time.   
Stay on target.  
I watch his eyes warily as they roll back and forth, half lidded and unseeing, waiting for any signs of regaining awareness. As long as his breath stays slow and even, I still have time.  
The tiles on his arm separate with a satisfying snap.  
I'm in.   
Connecting my equipment to what I'm now realizing is, for all intents and purposes, ancient engineering, I gather the minimal amounts of data, hardly glancing at the streams of information cascading down the screen of my tablet.   
I bounce on my toes, willing the program to work faster. Glancing at my watch I estimate another twenty seconds - if I'm lucky - of taciturn compliance before Arkhady fights through the haze and his brain gets his adrenaline pumping again.   
But what if I'm unlucky?  
Almost there.  
His hand twitches.  
A few more lines.  
His eyelids flutter. Eyebrows knitting together.  
Just a few more seconds.  
A sharp inhale.  
I freeze.  
His eyes are wide open and, despite the distant look behind them, I know I'm out of time.  
I nearly finish my test when the screaming starts again.  
"Нет! No!"  
The flailing begins and I disconnect and back away so quickly that I actually trip over my own feet, bumping into one of the handlers as he lunges forward to get Arkhady back under control.   
I pack my bag, trying to ignore the protests, the begging, the swearing.   
"You said you would help!" His confused pleading is almost heartbreaking.   
I hustle out of the theater, hurrying back to the observation room trying the whole time to ignore the fact that this asset obviously, though inexplicably, still has his memories.   
Safely behind our mirror, I pass the tablet to another agent to upload the new data to our own servers and begin the chore of sorting through the garbage for anything that can help. Upgrades will be needed, some replacements for sure, but I can't think of that right now.   
I watch the struggle below me, shaking my head,   
"You'll never convince me this is better."  
"Hannah, for one thing: this is the definition of 'harping.' And two: that thing was a mangled mess. Even if you could figure out how to fix it-"  
"-Thanks for that."  
"-there wouldn't be any point. We need these guys yesterday. Now that we have them, taking man power away from their.. Training to fix a machine - that I firmly believe is a lost cause - would put us so far behind schedule that the General would probably execute us himself."  
I sigh like a frustrated child, sulking in my own little world. After a moment I feel his hand on my shoulder,  
"I know you're invested in this. So am I. But you have to keep that distance too."  
"One week. That's all I would need and we could skip all of this." I gesture to the psychological abuse being dealt in the adjoining room.  
"Врач! Врач! Doc, why are you letting them do this?"  
"Maybe we could even reverse the damage that's been done on him, and then we could have Leo and the Soldier in a fraction of this time."  
"Who's he talking to?" Andrew asks, suddenly sidetracked.  
"He's actually proving my point. He has splinters of memories that are slowly surfacing. This routine you're so fond of has produced compliance for a time, but now the conditioning is breaking down. He has these clips, flashbacks essentially, of people and events that he remembers and then his mind offers fictions to fill in the blanks for him. So far it sounds like portions of his various cover stories. He just doesn't know they're not real."   
"Doc! Come on!"  
I would think by now he understands that with every outburst comes a barrage of beatings, meant for both punishment and forcing submission.   
"Пожалуйста, доктор. Please. Doctor Becker!"  
Andrew and I freeze, slowly facing each other.  
My maiden name.  
How would he know my maiden name?  
"What was that you were saying about his memories?" He asks,  
"That can't be a memory, before today I've never had any actual contact with him--"  
"--Ruth, please!"  
"Who's Ruth?" Andrew asks, waving a hand in front of me to get my attention. I shake myself out of my surprised stupor.   
"My grandmother... He remembers my grandmother..."


	4. Chapter 4

I don't know what I'm expecting. I don't know what I want to happen. Part of me thinks this is logical, that it'll work out, part of me wants it to go south just so I can tell Andrew I was right. Regardless, it's time.   
"Hannah, stop dawdling." I hear in my earpiece, "This is starting to look suspicious."   
"Well I don't know what to tell you," I snap back, "I'm not too keen on walking into my own execution."   
I hear him sigh,   
"You're being over dramatic."   
"You're really not showing much concern for your own wife." I hiss at the camera above the door, trying not to yell, "A week ago you didn't even want me coming back to work, now you want me to go talk to one of our assassins solo. Before he's broken."   
I can't tell if the silence that answers me is Andrew sulking or evidence of guilt, but he's right. The longer I wait, the less prepared we look. I finally enter the darkened theater.   
Arkhady winces and recoils when I switch on the lights. He's still strapped to the table, soaked from various stages of his 'conditioning'. He groans brokenly, almost whimpering. He stopped calling my grandmother's name two days ago. Around the same time he started begging for death. Nothing they've -we've- done is actually torture per se, we can't risk any long term damage. However, days without sleep, interrogations, mind games and no chance of release can make a person wish for any sort of end to the cycle. This afternoon, Andrew deemed him ready to move on to the next step and immediately had me wired and briefed to go face to face with one of our own assassins.   
"Нет. больше не надо. No more."   
"Soldier?"   
"больше не надо." He moans, his head still lolling back and forth in a pained daze,   
"You called on me, soldier. Now you expect me to wait?"   
"You called me soldier." He whispers to himself, "You called me soldier. Always a soldier, always waiting, always sleeping, sleeping when I'm dead, dead soldier waiting."   
"Private, you know what punishment you're facing if you keep this up." I know he's not a private, but I'm hoping the error will snap something to attention in him.   
"Privacy, privacy. Too overrated. Easy to hide in a crowd, they close in and crush you, and hide you, and face you, and punish you, and give you no privacy privacy privacy."   
"Tell me your name, soldier."   
He looks at the opposite corner of the room as if he can't tell that I'm standing beside him,  
"Soldier, your name. Report."  
"Karpov... Bruch... Eislen, Reddick, Simmons-"   
"-Your own name-"   
"-O'Dell, Carey, Marshall, Wieck."   
"It's me, soldier. You wanted me here. I'm here."   
"They're here. All here. Here, there, and everywhere. I'm here here there where..."   
"This isn't working, you need to snap him out of it." Andrew says in my ear,   
"And how exactly do you expect me to do that?" I hiss,   
"...expected unexpected expected unexpected..." Arkhady murmurs,   
"I don't know... Take his hand."   
My heart stutters,   
"Are you crazy?" I can't keep my whisper low enough, but I try my best. Arkhady's nonsensical mutterings continue, fueled by everything I say.   
"Take his hand, Hannah."   
"Hannah Ruth, Ruth Hannah, Doctor Becker... aw, nervous little Becky..."   
I gulp, take a steadying breath. He can hear my earpiece, if his hearing is that keen God knows what else he can pick up, and if his mind is too scrambled to properly interpret, I could be in real trouble.   
"That's right. It's Doctor Becker."   
"It's Doctor Blake." Andrew mutters in my ear. I roll my eyes.   
"Do you want me to do this or not?"   
"Doctor Ruth Becker Hannah Blake Becky Blake..."   
"Why did you want to see me?"   
He looks me straight in the eyes but looks through me at the same time,  
"Now you see me now you don't, but do you believe?"   
I get so frustrated I don't care anymore about any plan we had in place or any rules I'd be breaking to do this,   
"Arkhady." His eyes snap to mine.  
I take his hand, put my other hand on his forehead and hold him still, keeping his gaze.   
"Hannah, what do you think you're doing? You're not to use his name."   
He won't understand me if I don't speak his language,   
"Believe it or not, now you do, they always see us, now they don't." I start murmuring, low enough and close enough that I get his attention, "Always watching, always listening, no privacy for the private."   
"No."   
I freeze as something shifts behind his eyes. Understanding trying to take hold.   
"Нет?" I prompt.   
"Капитан." Captain. There he is.   
"Хорошо ли спалось, солдат?" Did you sleep well, Captain?   
His eyes clear immediately and zero in on mine,  
"Sleep when I'm dead. You keep bringing me back... Doctor Becker... or is it Blake now?"   
"Let's just stick with 'Doctor'. Can't let you go just yet. We have too much to do."   
He squeezes my hand in his and I offer him a small smile.   
"I can't believe it." I hear Andrew distantly. "She's got him. She's already got him."   
.  
.  
.  
"How could you not have anything yet? It's been two weeks." Andrew is crowding me at my desk, peering over my shoulder at my reports, certain there is something I'm missing.  
"If you wanted him an incoherent, psychotic mess I could have been finished days ago."  
"But still, absolutely nothing?"  
"We've been over this. His mental state is crucial to the success of any mission we send him on. Without the machine that takes time. Right now I'm busy trying to pick apart what is part of him and what was a previous cover."  
I can practically feel his eye roll and hear him take a deep breath to argue. Instead he lets it out in a huff,  
"If you don't believe me, just go back and look at the tape from the theater. He was almost completely unhinged."  
"You sincerely think you can fix that hunk of junk."  
I'm not sure if it's a question or condescension so I don't acknowledge him. We've been shuffling up a mountain for weeks all because he wouldn't listen to me to begin with. I continue with my research and reports until I'm startled out of my focus by a large file thumping loudly onto the desk beside me.  
"Top Secret: Project Zephyr.", "Classified.", "Authorized Eyes Only."  
I spin around on my lab stool, staring at Andrew. His pride seems wounded but he's still trying to hide it.  
"We got approval this morning. The machine and any parts still in storage are being delivered as we speak. You'll never guess where they want to keep it."  
"Approval... you already asked..."  
"Of course I did. I didn't want you to get your hopes up... but I also thought we wouldn't need it."  
"But I told you--"  
"Yes, you also love to get your hands on new toys. But I kinda had a feeling you would be right."   
"You won't regret that, you know. We could have them -- all three -- mission-ready by the end of next month now."  
"Just do my pride a favor and be wrong next time."  
"I'll do my best, but I can't guarantee anything."  
I wink at him, earning a smile and another eye roll, though the frustration is no longer evident. He'll come around by tonight. He does plant a kiss on the top of my head before leaving me to my work, but I'm already distracted by the plans for the machine, it's being situated in a secondary bunker not far from my lab: A safety deposit vault beneath one of our banks. I wonder sometimes if our superiors think they have some clever sense of humor. Because what better place is there to keep your most important assets?  
Okay, Arkhady. Time to go to work.


End file.
